Parental Board FAQ

Our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) contain common scenarios when using Parental Board. If your question is not answered with one of these, please feel free to email us at support@parentalboard.com.

Getting Started

How do I register an account with Parental Board?

Parental Board is available on the Google Play and App Store. Install and follow our in-app onboarding steps to create your account.

How do I add another family device to my Family Group?

Selecting the right App Mode

Control this Device (Child Mode): Selecting this mode enables restrictions, location tracking and safe browsing. If you are a parent trying out Parental Board, we recommend you select this mode to experience what we can do on your child’s device.

Manage Family Devices (Parent Mode): In this Mode, we allow monitoring your family devices (both Android and Apple iOS).

Follow these steps on all family devices

Install Parental Board

Open Parental Board

Tap LOGIN

If selecting Control this Device, follow our onboarding wizard and login with your email and password used to create your account.

If selecting Manage Family Devices, simply login with your email and password used to create your account.

How do I change the App Mode?

To change App Modes – Login to our Web Dashboard

Log in here, click on a device, on the Status tab click on the App Mode to select Parent or Child. Please note if you are changing from Child to Parent, you will lose any settings you customized and will need to reconfigure your settings if you switch back to Child mode.

Parental Board has 2 App Modes

Control this Device (Child Mode): Selecting this mode enables restrictions, location tracking and safe browsing. If you are a parent trying out Parental Board, we recommend you select this mode to experience what we can do on your child’s device.

Manage Family Devices (Parent Mode): In this Mode, we allow monitoring your family devices (both Android and Apple iOS).

How do I make changes to all of my Family Devices?

We continue to add more functionality in our app when the Manage Family Device mode (Parent Mode) is selected but for the best experience, we recommend logging into our web dashboard. Login with the same email and password used when you created your Parental Board account.

Our web dashboard allows you to view and configure additional settings for all family devices such as screen time schedules, apps to block, safe browsing settings, location tracking, smartphone features, and more.

How much does Parental Board cost?

Parental Board for Android is $12USD annually per device used in Child Mode. Payment can be made via a Play Store in-app Purchase or via PayPal in our web dashboard licensing page.

Parental Board for Apple iOS is currently free for one year when used in Child Mode.

Our Parent Mode is free for parents to manage their family devices.

Typical Scenarios

How can I track my child’s web browsing?

Parental Board can manage web browsing with our free cloud-based safe browser, SPIN. Other browsers like Chrome, Firefox or Safari are not supported.

SPIN enforces Google’s SafeSearch for search results and image results that are appropriate for younger audiences. SPIN will be prompted for install after you complete the Parental Board installation in Child Mode (Control this Device selection).

Parental Board will then be able to do the following when SPIN is installed:

Track and review browsing history

View and edit the filtered Content Categories

Allow only specific websites to open or block specific

SPIN is available from Google Play and App Store. SPIN can be used by itself too and enforces Google’s SafeSearch and filter 20 content categories, for free!

How do I still allow an app anytime outside of curfew time (Scheduled Screen Time)

This feature is for Android devices.

Our default behavior is to block all apps once your child’s Scheduled Screen Time has ended. If you wish to exclude specific apps from this curfew, feel free to login to our web dashboard with your email and password used to create your account and follow these steps.

Click on your child’s Android device

Click on the Always Allowed tab

Add additional apps or use the ones already listed

Check the Allow 24/7 checkbox

Within seconds, your child will now be able to use that specific app any time, even outside of your Scheduled Screen Time.

Websites and Phone Numbers will always work and do not require the above steps.

Can my kids still call me after their Screen Time is up?

Android-only

Yes, the phone app will always be allowed. To make it easier, you can add your phone number to the Always Allowed list which presents itself anytime an app is blocked or if time is up. In addition, Emergency (911) always works and is never blocked.

How do I block unknown incoming numbers calls?

Android-Only

Login into the web dashboard, click on the Device, then the Calls tab and check off “Allow calls from address book only” – this means that only numbers in the Contacts app will be able to be called and call in.

I want to collect the contents of SMS text messages

Android smartphones only

By default, Parental Board only collects the numbers and times text messages have occurred. If you wish to collect the contents of text messages, you must enable it in the Parental Board web dashboard.

How do I set up a Geofence?

Navigate the Google Map to your desired location (you can also enter a specific address)

Double click to start the creation of a surrounding area that would form a Geofence. Once the Geofence has been created, you need to assign to a Device.

Click on Device → Position → Geofence.

Select a Geofence you wish to assign to this Device and the default schedule allows the Device to be allowed outside of the Geofence anytime – choose the desired schedule for this Geofence.

Example: your child has after school band practice and decides to skip it to go to a friend’s house instead. Since you’ve set a geofence for the band practice time, you’ll receive a notification if your child’s device goes outside of this geofence during the schedule time.

How do I purchase a license for my child's Android device?

You can purchase a license for your family child devices via our Parental Board app.

Open Parental Board (on the device you are using to view and monitor your child’s device – usually your device)

Tap on your child’s device

Tap on Purchase via Google Play

Follow the usual steps to buy an in-app purchase via the Play Store.

Parent devices using our app in “Parent” mode do not require a license. In our setup wizard, this is the “Manage Family Devices” step.

How do I purchase a license for my child's Apple iOS device?

Currently Parental Board for iOS is free for one year. We do plan to add an in-purchase option in the near future so download Parental Board now from the App Store.

How do I delete a device from my group?

Login to the web dashboard, and in your devices list, click on the icon besides the device name (look like a hammer/screwdriver). Once the device has been deleted from My Account, our app will log you out on the device you delete and will no longer be managed by Parental Board. You can rejoin your family group again with our onboarding steps.

If you no longer need Parental Board on this device, make sure to also remove the app from any devices no longer being managed.

Troubleshooting

I forgot my password. What do I do?

We will send you reset instructions via your email (usually within 30-60 seconds)

How do I prevent Parental Board from being removed by my child?

For Android Devices

SAMSUNG DEVICES only: login to our web dashboard, click on a family devices and then click on the Settings tab. You will see several options here but for the purpose of this question, put a checkbox beside “Require Password for Uninstall” and “Force Automatic Date and Time Synchronization”.

ALL OTHER DEVICES: In order to get to the Device Administrator, the child has to have access to the Android Settings. Parents can block Settings easily by going to the web dashboard, click on a family devices then on the Applications tab checking off “Block Settings” under Top Blocked Apps.

ALL DEVICES and our Default Behaviour

Your child would have to go to Device Administrator, see a warning message and still proceed in order to deactivate Device Administrator. Once Device Administrator is deactivated, then your child can uninstall Parental Board (drag and drop it to the top of the screen or use the Application Manager). When this occurs, we proactively notify Parents via the primary contact person email and also send a push notification to device(s) running Parental Board in Parent Mode.

For Apple Devices (iPhone, iPads, etc)

Parental Board installs two components to all iOS devices:

Our App

Device Management profile in Settings → General → Device Management.

You can leverage a built-in restriction in iOS which will not allow your child to remove any added apps to their device. Due to how Apple limits certain parts of iOS, we cannot manage this feature at the moment with Parental Board. Here’s how to enable this option on your child’s device (this applies to iPods, iPhones and iPads):

Tap Settings > General

Tap Restrictions

Tap Enable Restrictions and enable a Passcode (don’t forget this Passcode or make it too easy to guess)

Tap Delete Apps to switch it off

Press Home and you’re all set!

We can only restrict the removal of our app with this restriction. Apple doesn’t allow us to add a passcode to our Device Profile. We do provide the user with a notification when it is removed. Opening Parental Board will reinstall the Device Profile.

Why do I see "Protected by Parental Board" in the notification area?

Android Only

This is normal behaviour for Parental Board. Our app must run with the highest priority in order to not get turned off by the Android task manager so we keep this persistent notification.

I got a notification to update Parental Board but can’t - help!

Android Only

This is a consequence of us working well – many parents block access to the Google Play Store so that their child is not able to download new apps and this is popular enough to have made our “Top Blocked Apps” list in the web dashboard.

So let’s uncheck Play Store under the Top Blocked Apps, perform the upgrade and then check it back as blocked.

How do I uninstall Parental Board from my device?

For iOS Devices

Parental Board installs two parts to all iOS devices. The following 2 steps will guide you in removing all traces of Parental Board from your iOS device.

Hold down the Parental Board icon (until it shakes) and remove the app as per normal iOS procedure.

On your iOS device, you will also need to remove the Device Management profile from Settings → General → Device Management.

For all Android Devices

Open Parental Board

Tap 3 dots (top right)

Tap Management

Enter your family group password

Tap Uninstall Application.

You may need to remove Device Administrator permissions in Security settings (you will be prompted for this).

Even though we do protect Parental Board from uninstalling, if your child does remove Parental Board from the Device Administrator, Parents will receive a notification via email, in-app (if they are using Parental Board in Parent mode) and an SMS will be sent to their phone number notifying that this event occurred.

Device data is not being updated or collected properly

Device data such as call logs, messages and browsing history, are collected and sent on a daily schedule to the Parental Board servers.

Sending data on a daily basis is the optimal approach in terms of keeping a low footprint on data plan and battery usage.

If you wish to change the check-in frequency, you may do so in the Parental Board Web Dashboard under Settings → Family Settings → Agent Lifetime.

Our recommendation is to manually request a check-in by clicking on the hammer logo on the right of the Device name and selecting “Request Check-in” if an update has not been received lately.

Why do I keep getting “Out of Geofence Notifications”?

Check your Geofence setting to ensure that it is not on the border of your home and/or school and make it broader as it could be set on the edge and we’d recommend a 200 meter (100 yards) buffer ideally as GPS is not perfect and can report locations that are slightly off from the actual location.

Sporadic collection of information (calls, texts, etc.) *in progress*

Android only

You may experience collection issues on certain types of Android devices. The mix of hardware and Android versions is a constant challenge we work with when supporting our customers but want to share some of our knowledge in things we check for first.